


Celebrations Abounded

by deathbyspaceglam



Series: Home for the Holidays [2]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Jewish Character, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Memes, Purim, Rey Skywalker, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, finn’s flatmates are OCs and they’re not super important, reading the related fics is probably important for context, realistic straight nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 04:54:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10236341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathbyspaceglam/pseuds/deathbyspaceglam
Summary: Finn and Rey are the only Jewish students that they know of in their university. They celebrate Purim together, both of them nostalgic for the traditions they grew up with.





	1. Is That, Like, One of Your Jewish Holidays?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AstriferousSprite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstriferousSprite/gifts).



> A sequel to [Chag Sameach, you nerd](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8601535) and [Shehecheyanu](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9121408), both by AstriferousSprite. Reading those fics isn’t completely necessary to understand this one, but they might help to contextualize it. (Also they’re really hecking good you should read them)

Finn gently set down a bag of groceries on the flat’s tiny kitchen counter as he stepped out of his shoes. He opened the fridge and transferred a pack of butter, a dozen eggs, a jar of strawberry jam, and an orange into the fridge.

 

As Finn closed the fridge and began organizing the other items into the cupboard, Calvin looked up from his textbook. “What’s all of that for?” he asked.

 

Finn closed the cupboard and turned to face his flatmate. “I’m going to make hamantaschen for Purim,” he said. “This is the first time I’ve ever made them on my own, so I hope it turns out okay.”

 

Calvin nodded blankly. “Is that, like, one of your Jewish holidays?”

 

“Well, yeah,” said Finn. “By the way, I was thinking of inviting Rey over this Saturday so we could celebrate together. Is that okay with you?”

 

“Yeah, it’s fine,” said Calvin, turning back to his textbook.

 

\---

 

Finn’s other flatmate, Josh, came home later than usual that afternoon. As he hung up his coat, Finn approached him. “I’m thinking of inviting Rey over this Saturday for Purim, is that okay with you?”

 

“That’s fine,” said Josh. “I could sleep over with the lads and you and your girlfriend can have the whole flat to yourselves.” He winked knowingly.

 

Finn flushed. “It’s not like that! Rey is just a friend, and besides, I told you I have a boyfriend.” He pulled out his phone and clicked the home button, displaying the photo of himself and Poe he had as a lock screen.

 

Josh shrugged. “Alright, whatever. Just make sure you don’t burn anything.”

 

 


	2. Purim Plans (part 1)

That night, Finn lay awake in bed. He wondered what Poe’s plans were for the holiday. He’d been home for Hanukkah in December and had met Poe’s friends on the night of the eighth candle. It had been a lively party with a fun group of people. He wondered if Poe was going to celebrate Purim with his friends.

 

Opening Skype, he noticed that Poe was online. He debated sending him a message. It was 10:30 at night, and Seattle was 8 hours behind, making it 2:30 in the afternoon. Maybe Poe was busy.

 

Just as Finn was about to turn off his phone, Poe sent him a message.

 

           u up?

 

Finn sat up in bed. It wasn’t like he really needed to get up early the next day.

 

           Ya

           It’s ok tho, I don’t have any early classes tomorrow

 

Poe responded within a few seconds.

 

           got any purim plans?

           pls tell me ur doing something

 

Finn rolled his eyes as he typed his response.

 

           I’m inviting Rey over and we’re baking hamantaschen

           The Goyim(tm) thought I wanted to sleep with her???

           Even tho I told them about you…

 

           

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AO3 keeps cutting me off here. I guess it can't handle the eyeroll emoji that Poe is about to use.


	3. Purim Plans (part 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess AO3 just really hates the eyeroll emoji for some reason. Just know that between the last chapter and this one, Poe used an eyeroll emoji. Finn is the one talking in the first line.

           Anyways what are your plans?

 

           gonna throw a 2 day party with the squad

           well have a megillah reading and every time it says haman were all gonna sing meme songs

 

           !!!

           Which ones?

 

           idk what the others are doing but im personally gonna sing we are number one

           i think jess is doing all star? idk

           and ofc when he dies were all singing mmm whatcha say

 

           Lmao

 

           bebe is just gonna bark rly loud whenever it says haman

 

Finn couldn’t help but laugh out loud at the mental image, earning him a loud “shhhh!” from Calvin.

 

           Lol

           Anyway I should go to sleep

           Love you

 

           love you

  
Sighing contentedly, Finn made sure the alarm on his phone was on before shutting it off and going to sleep.


	4. Celebrations Abound

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit longer than the others, jsyk.

At 3:24 that Saturday, there was a knock on the door. Through the peephole, Finn could see a horse mask with messy brown hair sticking out of it. He smiled as he opened the door to let Rey into the flat.

 

She took off the horse mask and kicked off her shoes, walking straight into the bedroom and throwing her bag on his bed. “Look what I brought,” she said, reaching into her bag and pulling out two noisemakers.

 

Distantly, Finn heard the door close as Calvin and Josh presumably left for their respective friends’ places. Grinning, he picked up a noisemaker and gave it a short, vigorous spin, feeling a twinge of nostalgia. As the noise died down, he sat down on the bed next to Rey. “Where did you get these?”

 

“My dads sent them,” she said, lazily spinning a noisemaker with one finger. “They're concerned about me being lonely and missing home during the holidays. Of course, just having the groggers isn’t the same as actually having a chance to use them, but I appreciate the thought.”

 

“Oh man,” said Finn. “My siblings always loved playing with noisemakers. Sometimes, instead of blocking out Ha-“ he was cut off by Rey vigorously spinning her noisemaker. He rolled his eyes. “That one dude’s name, they just blocked out anything each other said.” He smiled. “I miss them.”

 

“You’re lucky,” mused Rey. “I don’t have any siblings. The only other kid at my family reunions was my dickbag cousin Ben. It wasn’t so bad when we were little, but at some point he stopped taking any interest in basically everything Jewish. Sucks for him, though, because after my dads got married, we had these really fancy masquerade balls with a live orchestra…” She sighed. “But, I mean, while that was great, it just doesn’t have the same charm as a Megillah reading at home with a bunch of kids rattling groggers.”

 

Finn had an idea. “How about, while the hamantaschen are in the oven, we find a version of the Megillah online? I mean, I know it’ll never really replace the experience of reading it with a big group of people, but-“

 

“That sounds great!” exclaimed Rey, clapping her hands together.

 

\---

 

Once the hamantaschen were in the oven and they’d both washed their hands, Finn opened his laptop. He hadn’t celebrated Purim in a while, so he’d done some research on the holiday recently. As he expected, the Megillah was recent in his browsing history. He opened the page just as Rey sat down next to him. “Ready?” he asked.

 

“One sec,” said Rey, digging up the noisemakers. She handed one of them to Finn. “Okay.”

 

Finn took a deep breath. "It all began in Ancient Persia in the 4th century BCE. The Holy Temple that had stood in Jerusalem was destroyed more than 50 years earlier, and the Jews were subjects of the mighty Persian empire which extended over 127 lands.”

 

Rey listened attentively as Finn read about how King Ahasuerus had thrown a party, gotten drunk, and demanded that his wife Vashti "appear before all the partying men,” both of them wincing as Finn read about how Vashti was executed for refusing. "When Ahasuerus' wrath dissipated, he was lonely for a wife. His servants suggested that he orchestrate a beauty pageant. Officers would be appointed in all the king's lands, and all beautiful girls would be brought to Ahasuerus. And the girl who would find favor in the king's eyes would be the new queen,” Finn recited.

 

He read about the leader of the Jews, Mordechai, and his cousin Esther, who was forced to join the king’s harem. About how Esther became queen and Mordechai urged her not to divulge her nationality. "Shortly after Esther became queen, Mordechai overheard two of the king's chamberlains discussing a plot to assassinate the king. Mordechai had them reported, and the traitors were hanged.”

 

Rey rubbed her hands together in anticipation and lifted her noisemaker. Finn did the same as he continued to read. “Meanwhile, H-“ as Finn continued to say “Haman,” they both rattled their noisemakers vigorously- "one of Ahasuerus' ministers, was promoted to the position of Prime Minister. Ha-“ they rattled the noisemakers again- "was a virulent Jew hater; in fact he was a descendant of the notoriously anti-Semitic nation of Amalek.”

 

Finn continued to read about how the king demanded that everyone bow before Haman and about how Mordechai refused to do so, and how Haman had vowed revenge. Every time he said Haman’s name, he and Rey rattled their noisemakers.

 

He reached the part where the king learned about how Mordechai had saved his life. This was his favorite part. With an ironic smile, he read Haman’s advice to the king: “"Bring royal garment and a royal horse. And let one of the king's nobles dress the man and lead him on the horse through the city streets, proclaiming before him, 'So is done for the man whom the king wishes to honor!’"”

 

Rey cracked a grin at the dramatic irony. Finn continued reading. “"Great idea," Ahasuerus responded. "Now go get the garments and the horse and do so for Mordechai the Jew!””

 

“Ohhhhhhhhhhh!” shouted Rey.

 

Finn nodded and continued the story. They were just at the part where Esther revealed her nationality to the king and identified Haman as the person who wanted to perpetrate her people’s genocide. "The king was greatly angered. When he was then informed that Ha-“ they rattled their noisemakers aggressively- "had built a gallows for Mordechai, he ordered that H-“ more rattling- "be hanged on that very gallows.”

 

As he finished the story, Finn heard the oven timer beeping. Closing his laptop, he got up from the bed and rushed to the kitchen, hastily putting on oven mitts before opening the oven. Rey came into the kitchen just as Finn pulled out a sheet of hamantaschen.

 

Or at least, what was meant to be hamantaschen. While half of them had turned out okay, the other half had one side that had opened in the oven. One end of the baking pan was covered in burnt jam. Finn sighed as he quickly transferred the good hamantaschen to a plate and resigned to throw the other half away.

 

Rey reached over his shoulder and broke off a piece of one of the opened hamantaschen. She put it in her mouth, crunching loudly. “Mmm. Tastes like the ones my grandma always made,” she said, licking the jam off her fingers.

 

“Really? I was going to throw those away.” Finn broke off a piece, blowing on it a few times so it wouldn’t be too hot, and took a bite out of it. “Hmm. On second thought, I won’t throw them away.” He transferred the opened hamantaschen to another plate, separating them from the burnt jam.

 

\---

 

Later that night, Finn and Rey were sitting in an improvised blanket fort in the living room watching Raiders of the Lost Ark. Or rather, Raiders of the Lost Ark was playing in the background as they ate hamantaschen and talked about anything and everything- classes, politics, their families… Poe.

 

“We’ve been together for almost... three months now,” Finn recounted. “I actually hadn’t seen or heard from him since high school, but I ran into him in Starbucks when I went home for Hanukkah. He looked so different…” He trailed off, remembering the late December morning when he’d reunited with his old high school crush.

 

“How so?” asked Rey, spewing crumbs onto the carpet.

 

“He had a beard, for one thing. And his voice was different. Besides that, I guess the way he held himself in general was different?” Finn thought back to how relatively quiet and reserved Poe had been in high school, nothing like the magnetic ball of friendship he’d become in the intervening years. “He was standing a lot straighter than he did in high school.”

 

Rey snorted. “A lot straighter than he  _ is _ , you mean.”

 

Finn rolled his eyes. “Well, that too,” he conceded. “But gay jokes aside, it was really great seeing that he did eventually get to go on T.”

 

Rey nodded and started on another pastry, chewing thoughtfully. “Yeah, my aunt told me that my dad looked a lot different when I was just born and that by the time I was three, he’d already changed a lot. I don’t remember him ever not having a beard.” She pulled out her phone and clicked it open, thumbing through her photo albums before showing Finn a photo.

 

It was Rey as a young girl, maybe seven or eight, smiling at the camera. Behind her were two middle-aged men with their arms around each other’s shoulders. She pointed to one of them, a bearded man wearing what looked like a simple poncho. “This is Luke, my biological father,” she said. “He was single for the first seven years of my life.” She pointed to the other, who was wearing a royal blue cape with gold trim and a matching kippah. “This is Lando. He’s technically my stepdad, but that doesn’t really matter. He’s still basically my dad.”

 

Finn processed the information. “So, Luke gave birth to you, right?”

 

Rey nodded.

 

“So you’re ‘not of woman born’?”

 

“I mean, yeah,” said Rey nervously.

 

Finn grinned mischievously. “You know what that means? It means you could fulfill the prophecy and defeat Mac-“ He was cut off by Rey frantically spinning her noisemaker.

 

\---

 

Once they’d finished cleaning up the next morning and Rey had gone, Finn was all alone. He figured he might as well do his homework. He sat down at his desk and opened his laptop.

 

He’d only just opened his paper when a Skype message popped up on his screen. Curious, he checked the message.

 

It was from Poe. What was he doing online at (Finn quickly calculated) four in the morning? (It was Spring Forward. That was why it felt like morning even though it was noon.)

 

           wild megillah reading tonight

 

Poe had also sent a video. Finn plugged in his headphones and played the video.

 

"Immediately after his promotion,” recited Karé, reading from a phone screen, "the king issued a decree ordering everyone to bow down whenever Ha-“

 

“NOW LISTEN CLOSELY!” came Poe’s voice from behind the camera. Distantly, Finn could hear a cacophony other meme songs. Yes, there was Jess singing All Star. Finn could catch a few jumbled words from other songs, including what sounded like “the hobbits the hobbits,” before Poe began to sing. “Here’s a little lesson in trickery, this is going down in history. If you wanna be a villain…” He trailed off. The others all gradually trailed off as well. Once everyone was quiet, Karé kept reading. ”…appeared.” The video stopped.

As Finn closed out of the video, he noticed that Poe had sent him another message.

 

           hows ur purim?

  
Finn smiled fondly as he began to type a reply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was forced to delete half of poe's linguistic personality because ao3 can't handle emojis

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Purim! The title is a quote from the Megillah.


End file.
